Openers create rare record in Rawalpindi run-fest
This was the first time in a Test match that all four openers had scored hundreds for their respective teams. There were four centuries from openers in the 1948 Port of Spain Test between England and the West Indies, but one of them came in the third innings.
In a double-century opening stand, Pakistan's Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq amassed hundreds of their own in the ongoing Rawalpindi Test match between them and Pakistan.
There were two double-hundred-run partnerships for the first wicket for the first time ever in a Test match as Pakistan openers Shafique and Imam put together a double-hundred-run opening stand after Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett.
Shafique was the first to go down as Will Jacks, a late addition to the starting lineup who was only there because Ben Foakes was suffering from the viral ailment that was plaguing several England players, broke the important opening partnership.
By that time, both Shafique and Imam had reached their centuries. The match saw four hundreds from the top of the order in the Test, two from each team's first innings, with the Pakistan openers reaching their own hundreds.
This was another first during a Test that had already seen a number of firsts.
This was the first time in a Test match that all four openers had scored hundreds for their respective teams. There were four centuries from openers in the 1948 Port of Spain Test between England and the West Indies, but one of them came in the third innings.
Only these two Test matches have featured four hundreds from the opening position overall. But in the Rawalpindi Test, all of the openers scored hundreds in their respective teams' opening batting innings for the first time.
Seven different batters have now reached the century mark in this Test, falling just one short of the all-time mark of eight set by the West Indies-South Africa Test at St. John's in 2005 and the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh Test at Galle in 2013.
